ArabizationorArabisation (Arabic: تعريب‎ taʻrīb) describes a growing cultural influence on a non-Arab area that gradually changes into one that speaks Arabic and/or incorporates Arab culture and Arab identity. It was most prominently achieved during the 7th century Arabian Muslim conquests which spread the Arabic language, culture, and—having been carried out by Arabian Muslims as opposed to Arab Christians or Arab Jews—the religion of Islam to the lands they conquered. The result: some elements of Arabian origin combined in various forms and degrees with elements taken from conquered civilizations and ultimately denominated "Arab".

After the rise of Islam in Hejaz, Arab culture and language spread through trade with African states, conquest, and intermarriage of the non-Arab local population with the Arabs, in Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Sudan. The Arabic language became common among these areas; dialects also formed. Although Yemen is traditionally held to be the homeland of Arabs, most[1][2] of the Yemeni population did not speak Arabic (but instead South Semitic languages) prior to the spread of Islam.

The influence of Arabic has also been profound in many other countries whose cultures have been influenced by Islam. Arabic was a major source of vocabulary for languages as diverse as Berber, Indonesian, Tagalog, Malay, Maltese, Persian, Portuguese, Punjabi, Sindhi, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Turkish, Urdu, English, as well as other languages in countries where these languages are spoken; a process that reached its high point in the 10th to the 14th centuries, the high point of Arabic culture, and although many of these words have fallen out of use since then, many remain. For example the Arabic word for book /kita:b/ is used in all the languages listed, apart from Malay, Somali, and Indonesian (where it specifically means "religious book") and Portuguese and Spanish (which use the Latin-derived "livro" and "libro", respectively).

The earliest and most significant instance of "Arabization" was the first Muslim conquests of Muhammad and the subsequent Rashidun and UmayyadCaliphates. They built a Muslim Empire that grew well beyond the Arabian Peninsula, eventually reaching as far as Spain in the West and Central Asia to the East.

After the rise of Islam, the Arab tribes unified under the banner of Islam and Arabs colonized modern Jordan, Palestine and Syria. However, even before the emergence of Islam, the Levant was already a home for several pre-Islamic Arabian kingdoms. The Nabateans kingdom of Petra which was based in Jordan, the Ghassanids kingdom which was based in Syria. Some of these kingdoms were under the indirect influence of the Romans, Byzantines, and the PersianSassanids. The Nabateans transcript developed in Petra was the base for the current Arabic transcript while the Arab heritage is full of poetry recording the wars between the Ghassanids and Lakhmids Arabian tribes in Syria. In the 7th century, and after the dominance of Arab Muslims within a few years, the major garrison towns developed into the major cities. The local Arabic and Aramaic speaking population, which shared a very close Semitic linguistic/genetic ancestry with the Qahtani and Adnani Arabs, was somewhat Arabized, although Neo-Aramaic speaking minorities persist to the present day.

Since the foundation of the Ptolemaic kingdom in Alexandria, Egypt had been under the influence of Greek culture, and later under the control of the Roman Empire. Eventually it was conquered from the Eastern Romans by the Arab Muslims in the 7th century CE. The Coptic language, which was written using the Coptic variant of the Greek alphabet, was spoken in Egypt before the Arabic Islamic conquest. As a result of Egypt's Arabization, the native language of all Egyptians including the Copts is now Arabic with the Egyptian Arabic dialect. Currently the Coptic language only survives as a liturgical language of the Coptic Church.

Neither North Africa nor the Iberian Peninsula were strangers to Semitic culture: the Phoenicians and later the Carthaginians dominated parts of the North African and Iberian shores for more than eight centuries until they were suppressed by the Romans and by the following Vandal and Visigothic invasions, and the Berber incursions. The Berbers allied themselves with the Umayyad Arab Muslims in invading Spain. Later, in 743 AD, the Berbers defeated the Arab Umayyad armies and expelled them for most of North Africa during the Berber Revolt. Centuries later some migrating Arab tribes settled in some plains while the Berbers remained the dominant group almost everywhere. The Inland North Africa remained exclusively Berber until the 11th century; the Iberian Peninsula, on the other hand, remained Arabized, particularly in the south, until the 16th century.

Famous scholar Ibn Khaldun described how Banu Hilal and other Arab tribes helped spread the Arab language in areas that had been Berber speaking. The Banu Hilal, a Bedouin Arabian tribal confederation immigrated first to Libya reducing the percentage of Zenata Berbers and Sanhaja Berber population in North Africa into a minority of its current Arab dominated population. The Banu Hilal, as well as the Banu Muqal, Jashm and others, eventually settled in parts of modern Morocco and Algeria.

The Banu Sulaym another Bedouin tribal confederation from Hejaz followed through the trials of Banu Hilal and helped them defeat the Zirids in the Battle of Gabis 1052 AD, and finally taking Kairuan in 1057 AD. The Banu Sulaym mainly settled and Arabized Libya, however, Berber minorities still live in Libya.

The Banu Ma'qil is a Yemeni nomadic tribe that settled in Tunisia in the 13th century. The Banu Hassan a Maqil branch moved into the Sanhaja region in what's today the Western Sahara and Mauritania, they fought a thirty years war on the side of the Lamtuna Arabized Berbers who claimed Himyarite ancestry (from the early Islamic invasions) defeating the Sanhaja berbers and Arabizing Mauritania.

Besides Mozarabs, another group of people in Iberia eventually came to surpass the Mozarabs both in terms of population and Arabization. These were the Muladi or Muwalladun, most of whom were descendants of local Hispano-Basques and Visigoths who converted to Islam and adopted Arabic culture, dress, and language. By the 11th century, most of the population of al-Andalus was Muladi, with large minorities of other Muslims, Mozarabs, and Sephardic Jews. It was the Muladi, together with the Berber, Arab, and other (Saqaliba and Zanj) Muslims who became collectively termed in Christian Europe as "Moors".

The process of Arabization and Islamization was reversed as the mostly-Romance speaking Christian kingdoms in the north of the peninsula gradually conquered al-Andalus and re-Romanized and re-Christianized the region.

The Andalusian Arabic language was spoken in Iberia during Islamic rule, it is now extinct, except in Andalusi music.

A similar process of Arabization and Islamization occurred in the Emirate of Sicily (as-Siqilliyyah), Emirate of Crete (al-Iqritish), and Malta (al-Malta), albeit for a much shorter time span than al-Andalus. However, this resulted in the now defunct Sicilian Arabic language to develop, from which the modern Maltese language derives.

In 1846, many Arab Rashaida migrated from Hejaz in present day Saudi Arabia into what is now Eritrea and north-east Sudan after tribal warfare had broken out in their homeland. The Rashaida of Sudan and Eritrea live in close proximity with the Beja people. Large numbers of Bani Rasheed are also found on the Arabian Peninsula. They are related to the Banu Abs tribe.[13] The Rashaida speak Hejazi Arabic.

Arabization means introduction of Arabic education and an increased usage of Arabic where French was used before. Governments in North African countries have long promoted Arabization as a nationalist platform. Both Literary Arabic and Dārija are on the rise.

In Algeria, there is some tension between some Berber groups (such as the Kabyle people) and the government on formalizing their language which feeds the Berbers feelings that their ancestral culture and language are threatened and that Arabic is given more focus at the expense of their own identity.

Hafez al Asad and Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath parties had Arabization policies involving driving out many races mainly including Kurds, and Assyrians as well as Armenians + other inhabitants and replacing them with Arab families. This policy drove out 500,000 people from 1991-2003.(see Kirkuk#1970 Autonomy Agreement)

Mauritania is an ethnically-mixed country that is economically and politically dominated by those who identify as Arabs and/or Arab-speaking Berbers. About 30% of the population is considered "Black African", and they suffer high levels of discrimination.[14][14] Recent Black Mauritanian protesters have complained of "comprehensive Arabization" of the country.[15]

Sudan is an ethnically-mixed country that is economically and politically dominated by the northern Sudanese who identify as Arabs and Muslims. The southern Sudanese are largely a Christian and Animist Nilotic people. The Second Sudanese Civil War (1983–2005) is typically characterized as a conflict between these two peoples. In 2011 South Sudan voted for secession and became independent.

This article incorporates text from Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Volume 17, by Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, JSTOR (Organization), a publication from 1888 now in the public domain in the United States.

This article incorporates text from Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Volume 17, by Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, JSTOR (Organization), a publication from 1888 now in the public domain in the United States.